About the Author

Alex "Sandy" Pentland directs MIT's Human Dynamics
Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program and
co-leads the World Economic Forum Big Data and Personal Data
initiatives. He helped create and direct MIT's Media Laboratory,
the Media Lab Asia laboratories at the Indian Institutes of
Technology, and Strong Hospital's Center for Future Health. His
research group and entrepreneurship program have spun off more than
thirty companies to date. In 2012 Forbes named Pentland one
of the seven most powerful data scientists in the world. His
research has been featured in Nature, Science, and
Harvard Business Review.

Reviews

The Economist
"Social Physics is filled with rich findings about what
makes people tick. Using millions of data points measured over a
long period of time in real settings, which Pentland calls 'living
laboratories, ' the author has monitored human behavior on an
unprecedented scale...Pentland's research also offers lessons for
policymakers and business people. He advances a new way to protect
privacy by creating something of a property right for personal
information...Social Physics is a fascinating look at a new
field by one of its principal geeks." Kirkus Reviews
"A fascinating view of the future of social networks that offers
intriguing possibilities." John Abele, Co-Founder, Boston
Scientific:
"Understanding, predicting and influencing human behavior has been
the goal of social scientists (and leaders anywhere) since the
beginning of time. Pentland's Social Physics is a major
contribution to this field. By using communication tracking
analysis and occasionally human sensors along with big data, he and
his team are evolving a new discipline with a unique taxonomy and
ontology that brings a higher level of quantification and rigor to
a challenging and inherently complex field. Like Surowiecki's
The Wisdom of Crowds it will spawn further work and research
in a rapidly expanding new body of knowledge." John Seely Brown,
Former Chief Scientist, Xerox Corporation and director of Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC):
"Read this book and you will look at tomorrow differently. Reality
mining is just the first step on an exciting new journey. Social
Physics opens up the imagination to what might now be
measurable and modifiable. It also hints at what may lie beyond
Adam Smith's invisible hand in helping groups, organizations and
societies reach new levels of meaning creation. This is not just
social analytics. It also offers pragmatic ways forward." Reed E.
Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission,
CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital:
"From his MIT aerie, eagle-eyed Alex Pentland has seen the future.
His wise and stimulating book teaches us how ideas spring up, flow,
and spread. Applying his lessons, we can act collectively to solve
previously intractable social, economic and political problems. We
can make organizations more productive. We can even have government
achieve its proper purposes, with greater fairness and less cost.
As challenges like widening inequality and runaway climate change
seem to exceed our ability to design solutions, Pentland's
data-driven, reality-based, yet sunny optimism about tomorrow
should be eagerly welcomed by all readers." Stephen M. Kosslyn,
Former Dean of Social Science, Harvard University; Former Director,
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford
University; Founding Dean, Minerva Schools at KGI
"Sandy Pentland lives in the future--and it shows. This book will
not only whisk you up to speed on cutting-edge research at the
interface of technology, behavioral science, and the social world,
but it will also give you a good sense of what could be next.
Professor Pentland brilliantly analyzes how new ideas flow and how,
with the emergence of the 'data-driven society, ' they will
increasingly influence every aspect of our lives."

Fishpond works with suppliers all over the world to bring you a huge selection of products, really great prices, and delivery included on over 25 million products that we sell.
We do our best every day to make Fishpond an awesome place for customers to shop and get what they want — all at the best prices online.

You can earn a 5%
commission by selling Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter
on your website. It's easy to get started - we will give you example code.
After you're set-up, your website can earn you money while you work, play or even sleep!
You should start right now!

Are you the Author or Publisher of a book? Or the manufacturer of one of the millions of products that we sell.
You can improve sales and grow your revenue by submitting additional information on this title.
The better the information we have about a product, the more we will sell!